by Nicole Kurtz
Wednesday afternoon stretched out lazily. On the table lay half eaten sandwiches of peanut butter and jalapeno jelly, cups of cold coffee and Jane’s cigarette butts piled into a Styrofoam cup-turned-ashtray. Jane relaxed, sprawled across the sofa, transfixed by the pictures of shiny slick aerocycles zipping through crystal blue skies.
“Hmmmm… I’ll get a child’s size pajama shirt and a young girl’s pajama bottom in purple. I think she’s still small in the chest area, but her legs are growing like vines,” I muttered to myself, clicking on the items to add to my shopping cart. I added gift-wrapping (purple balloons) and a note from me (Love, Aunt Cyb) and paid. I prayed Nina would get it by Saturday, her birthday. Laughing, I imagined the look on Tisha’s face when she saw my gift arrive and Nina discard all the high, overpriced stuff from Marcus and her, in favor of my present.
Last night, Mayor Christensen took two sleeping injections and bid us goodnight. Jane tried to get her to tell us more about Amanda and Hanson, but Mayor Christensen refused, her media smile slapped back onto her face. Jane didn’t speak on the way back to the rental room, her anger spent.
My investigation stymied and emotionally drained; I decided to take a day off to relax. Nothing like a nap and lounging to recharge the batteries. Jane agreed and we had deliberately omitted talking about the case at all. We were stuck and we both knew it.
It all comes back to objectivity. As I said earlier, it’s a p.i. essential. Ours were gone. Personal cases always found a way of dismantling it.
I knew it and now, so did Jane. She had so wanted me to be wrong about her aunt, to be wrong about Amanda, and to her horror, I wasn’t. I, on the other hand, had wanted to be so right about the mayor that I too had made a mistake in accusing Christensen and Hanson.
“Go grab us some beer,” Jane said lazily. “It’s after four.”
Feeling like a wife instead of a partner, I said tartly, “Get it yourself.”
With a deep, exaggerated sigh, she clicked off the program and stood up. Without a word, she put her naked feet into her boots, laced them up and left the room.
Gross. No socks!
Shuddering, I turned back to my handheld, and pulled up the case notes. We weren’t supposed to be talking about it, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t read up on it. I knew Jane wasn’t mad, but more irritated. I clicked on the last entry date when three dings spooked me from my thoughts.
Jane’s back quick. Probably forgot her money, leaving so hastily.
“Hold your wauto,” I said and opened the door to…
“Hello, Cinnamon. ‘Member me?” Jarold Montano said, his hot breath brushing my face, forcing me to want to gag.
I slammed my fist into the close button and he fired at me. The doors clipped off the beam. He forced his foot into the space at the last moment, making the doors retracted. He stalked into the room, his face perverted into a mash of glee and fury.
I wanted to spit into his smooth face. But then I’d be too close when he fired.
I raced in to the bedroom, and picked up my 350 from the nightstand as Jarold fired repeatedly. One shot nicked my calf, forcing me to collapse down between Jane’s bed and the wall containing the room’s sole window.
Fear settled into a cold, hard lump in the pit of my stomach. I tried to settle down, but my breathing came in fast, rough gulps. How the hell did he find out where I was?
“Just tell me where he is!” roared Jarold. “Tell me now, Cinnamon!”
His voice drew nearer, and I readied myself to try to stand and fire. Blood seeped into the carpet from my leg and the pain made my eyes watered. Bastard!
“Come out, Cinnamon, come out sweet little thing,” Jarold sang hysterically, raising goosebumps across my arms. The sing-songy voice was disappearing like melting snow. “Now!”
He stepped closer to my direction, judging by his voice. The two-room rental place didn’t leave me many places to hide or get cover. Fish in a barrel.
Exposed, I knew that I was an easy mark.
But then, so was he.
I wore only my black camisole and shorts. I felt naked. I pressed my hand hard against the laser wound, but blood squirted up between my knuckles and fingers. It ran into the carpet, making it squishy. I felt a little dizzy, but I shook my head to rid myself of the cobwebs.
A laserbeam shot burst through the bed’s overhanging covers and right above my head. A mere one-inch lower and he would have shot me in the head.
The bastard was shooting under the bed.
And he’d nearly scalped me.
Quickly, I flipped up the cover…
“I see you,” he said and laughed with malicious cackling from the opposite side of the bed, where he had lifted up the bed’s overhanging covers. His black eyes shined. He fired again and I felt the hot burn of the laser burrow into my arm and out. I dropped the 350 and gritted my teeth to the agony.
No, no, h-he wasn’t going to kill me this time…
“Bye, Cinnamon,” he said with an icy smile as he let go of the hangings and stepped around to the side of the bed, where I lay on the floor, bleeding and in major pain. “Those breasts look so yummy all pushed up and exposed.”
He pointed his gun at me, his eyes glazed over and dewy. “I will enjoy nibbling on them when you’re sipping your last breaths.”
I had a good life. Well, at least it was adventurous.
I closed my eyes to the coming blast.
It never came.
I heard something hit the window, grunt, and then to my relief I heard…
“Freakin’ fucker! Take that!” Jane growled.
I opened my eyes to see a dead Jarold Montano slump to the floor beside me, the lasergun hole dead center in the middle of his forehead. The shininess poured out of his eyes, which stared at some far off place without seeing. He flopped down beside me, underneath the window.
Another gaping hole in his stomach allowed me to see the blood smeared wall behind him. What a mess. Hanson wasn’t going to like this at all.
“Jane,” I said, my throat felt dry, my strength ebbing out onto the carpet in a dark red stream. My voice only came as a croaked whisper. Strangled and sore, I couldn’t get enough air to speak.
“Don’t talk. There’s blood everywhere,” Jane said as if she hadn’t killed someone. She moved out of sight and I heard the telemonitor click on. There were voices, but they were muffled…
….and then the blackness
…swallowed me.
“Cybil,” called a man’s voice, gently with a soft hint of southern twang. Soothing like a sunny patch of light, the voice called again, “Cybil.”
I gradually opened my eyes to find my body strapped to a stretcher hovering above Jane’s bed. The overhead lights seared into my head. I closed my eyes against the brightness. I thought back to Mr. Schmuckler, but wished that vision away. Stubbornly, the pictures plowed through the mental roadblocks until I conjured up memories of Trey, which exorcized him.
Trying once more, I slowly opened my eyes. I raised my hands to shield my eyes from the horrid, glaring fluroscent lights, and groaned. The room was filled with turquoise clad people who puttered around with scanners, kits and digital cameras. A strange sense of déjà vu swept over me.
Captain Hanson loomed beside me, his manicured hands holding one of mine. “Cybil, are you all right?” His eyes skimmed over my partially clad body, taking in my exposed legs and my tight, short top. Perhaps he enjoyed the blood splatter across my breasts. He hastily moved his eyes back up to my face.
I licked my dry lips and with a mouth full of spit that felt like paste, I said, “Sure, for someone whose been shot twice.”
“Can’t be hurt too badly if she’s cracking jokes,” said one of the paramedics.
I wasn’t too sure about that hurt too badly part. The room seemed to spin around, slowly, as I was on a carousel…up and down, around and around. My stomach didn’t like it very much. I could feel it churning.
Hanson blushed and said, “Sorry.
Listen, I am sorry about the other day. I-I have a lot of things to talk to you about. Get better first, and then we’ll talk.”
Jane finished her statement to the regulator and came over to the stretcher. The paramedics, one slender young man with dreadlocks scowled at her, but she growled at him and he stepped back, allowing her room up to the stretcher.
“They’re taking you to the hospital. With luck, you’ll get a room with Schmuckler,” she said, with a grin.
That first night passed in a blur of nurses, bland, tasteless food and visitors. I awoke on Saturday afternoon. To Jane’s disappointment, I did not end up sharing a room with Schmuckler. I was given my own room where two armed regulators were positioned outside—a gift from Hanson. They only allowed in Jane, Captain Hanson, and Mayor Christensen.
During a lull in the activity, I punched up the number for Tisha with my left hand. My right arm from the wrist down to the elbow was bandaged rigidly. Itching like wildfire beneath the tight gauze, I rubbed the thing, but couldn’t get any relief.
Tisha’s face filled my hospital room’s monitor within moments, her braids slick and curled in ringlets. “Hello. Oh, it’s you.”
“Just calling to talk to Nina,” I said, biting back my name-calling urge.
“One minute,” Tisha said, her eyes searching my hospital gown and bandages. “Are you hurt again?”
I nodded, feeling her icy disapproval wash over me. “Two laser shots, one of which could’ve been fatal. Fates were lookin’ out.”
Her eyes grew wide, her nostrils flared. “Cybil.” She sounded like mom.
The laughter of kids and music crept from the background as ‘Tisha traveled to the ongoing birthday party.
“How’s the party?”
“Fine,” Tisha said, her eyebrows knit together. “About your chosen profession, it is entirely unladylike…no wonder you haven’t had a real husband or boyfriend…”
The telemonitor shifted sharply and Nina’s face came into focus. “Aunt Cyb!” she squealed happily.
A smile so big it covered the distance, from ear to ear, appeared on my face. “Happy birthday!”
“I love my butterfly pjs. Purple is my favorite color,” she gushed, her eyes bright and her voice filled with joy. Indeed, for she wore a purple long-sleeved shirt. Her quick eyes took in my gown and the joy ebbed out of her face. “Are you-uh-okay?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing,” I said waving her off, trying to bring back the smile and her joy.
She frowned disbelievingly. Damn. She looks just like Tisha when she makes that face.
“Listen, blow out your candles and make a big wish,” I said around the lump in my throat. “Make it good so that you’ll enjoy it all year long.”
“Okay,” she said, her smile gone, perhaps for the rest of our time on the telemonitor. Darn.
“Hey Squirt, do me a huge favor. Don’t spit all over the cake,” I said playfully although my insides were twisting in knots at the horror this would bring to my little niece.
She laughed and said goodbye, the edges of a faint smile on her face.
Tisha’s scowl replaced Nina’s giggles.
“One day we’ll talk about your other job options,” Tisha muttered. “She cares about you and here you are taking chances with your life. DO you know what it would do to her if you were killed?”
And what that would do to you, Tisha?
“I like my job,” I said, not wanting to think about the effect my death would have on Nina. My death would put me in a sour mood too. “Until you get a job of your own, Tisha, don’t try to tell me about mine. I love that little girl with my heart and soul, so don’t think I take my ass getting shot off lightly!”
Tisha gasped and replied tartly, “I am a mother. Something to which you will never experience…”
“Sure,” I said, suddenly exhausted and slightly winded. “Later.”
I clicked off the telemonitor with Tisha’s mouth wide open to speak. I couldn’t deal with that right now. Fatigued streaked along the inside of my body like thread through pipe. Achy and still sore where the laser shots burrowed through muscle and flesh, I lay back against the pillows, my brow sweaty and my hand, the good one, shaky.
The doors slid open and in walked a nurse. She was young, about twenty-ish and carried a big vase crammed with artificial flowers—real ones being extremely difficult to find and expensive to boot. With a rattled sigh, she placed the vase on the stand beside my bed. There wasn’t a card or note. No electronic pinnings or animated card.
“Someone sure likes you,” she said as she briskly checked my vitals and left.
When I woke up again, shadows stretched out across the wall and cast the room into dusk. Across from my bed, beneath the room’s sole window sat Jane, avidly watching the news on the telemonitor with the sound turned down low. Flashes of the program spilled over her and she didn’t seem to know I had awakened.
“Anything nasty going on?” I asked quietly, for my throat still felt like rubber. I didn’t think I could stomach any food without it being rejected and sent back up the opposite way.
“Oh, the sleepy has arisen,” she said, turning in her seat to face me. “How you feel?”
“Like I’ve been ran over by a cargo craft,” I said scooting up to a sitting position. During my nap my bandages had been changed; but already pink, watery fluid bled through the white wrappings on my arm. I knew that scar tissue, lump and thick, would decorate this arm.
“This should make you feel better,” Jane said as she got up from her chair and clicked off the telemonitor.
She came over to my bed. Dressed in a black, long-sleeved tee-shirt and black jeans, she looked lethal and dangerous. Her dreadlocks were tied high at the top of her head in a ponytail. They swept over her shoulder, brushing her neck and middle back. She didn’t wear a jacket, but I could see the outline of her knife holder she kept on the right side of her waist, beneath her shirt—only because I knew where to look.
“I spoke to Captain Hanson a few hours ago and he’s unearthed some stuff you should hear,” she said, a smirk on her face. “Hold on to your night gown. Jarold Montano is sleeping away at Frazier’s Cradle Corporation for theft and your attempted murder. He hasn’t been awake or out of the cradle since the day they loaded him in and injected him.”
“Then-“ I sputtered.
Jane held up her hand. “Left me finish.”
I closed my mouth, albeit grudgingly. Someone was trying to make a fool out of me and I didn’t like it. Jane had shot someone in our rental room. He looked exactly like Jarold Montano.
“The body in our rental room was a hatchling clone,” Jane said, her voice even and firm. “Jarold was a hatchling. So, they kept his mix on file. Someone duplicated it, grew it and pushed it out into the streets with one purpose-kill you.”
“What?” I gasped, leaning forward. “He wasn’t anywhere near perfect. I never even saw the tattoo!”
“Apparently, Montano wasn’t a legal hatchling authorized by our trans-territory legal genetic system, but by some rogue, independent geneticist. This genius created a second Montano at the original’s request. Probably from Mexico…”
“But, he had crooked teeth, a twisted sense of humor…”
Jane nodded. “Well, before Montano went to the cradle, he had some guy produce a clone. The specific details are fuzzy. The original idea may have been for it to take his revenge out on you.”
“But…”
“Something happened to derail that pleasant plan,” Jane said with a grin. “This second Montano started using Zenith and other stuff that makes a brain go wacky. Remember, independent geneticist don’t have to follow the territory’s guidelines for creating a hatchling…we’re talking black market work. Under belly basics, based on currency—nothing more or even close to being regulated.”
“Someone hired and redirected him to come after me,” I said, my heart hammering inside my chest. The idea that someone created another Montano increased my blood pressure…
And if they created another one, there could be more.
Jane sat down on the edge of my bed. “But, of course, no one wants you dead.” She snorted in laughter, her eyes sparkling. “Yeah, it could’ve been anyone.”
“Funny, oh, funny,” I said as I tried to ingest the news. I had a laundry list of enemies. Still, Montano only cared about carving out information concerning Trey. Otherwise he would have killed me outright that night outside Padre’s. The other night, though, his orders had changed. He asked about Trey between firings. He came straight away to kill me. Like Schmuckler. They were both going to kill me, even if I did have Trey’s information and gave it to them. This could only mean that Trey had been found by whoever was looking for him and I, a loose end, had to be eliminated.
“Smells like the Raymen Cartel.”
“Probably,” Jane said, with an air of boredom, her eyes drifting back to the telemonitor as she turned to face the blank screen. “Though I don’t know why you put yourself out there for a hatchling. Christ, I’d give Trey up. Anyway, I told Hanson.”
“What did you tell Hanson?” More sharp than I had intended, I erased the frown on my face.
“That we’ve had past dealings with the Cartel,” she said, her face pointed away from me. “Keep your gown on, I know the rules. I gave him enough to make him feel like he knows what’s going on. He suspected something, and I gave him something to back off us.”
“I know, I know,” I said, my throat starting to sear in pain.
“Oh, I had to move us to a different rental property. We got kicked out of Henry’s,” Jane said, a big grin on her face. “They said we were bad for business. Two rooms, three days, and the regs constant attention. Nope, the owner sent us packing.s”
I laughed. My eyes felt heavy, as if weighed down with bricks. Must be the medication repairing the muscles. It took a lot of out you and I felt sleepy just thinking about it.
Relaxing, I lay down and was soon asleep.
I woke to a world of damp gloom. Jane lay asleep only a few feet away, awkwardly positioned in a chair, chin tucked into her bosom, her legs sprawled outward in front of her. The telemonitor, blank and dim, in the wee hours of the day, was finally silent.